Active Member

I've read a few places about PES4 having bad lag on Live - does it ruin the game or is it still pretty playable? I'm about to go out and get Live and PES but might not bother if it is as bad as some say.....
I assume it's still pretty playable as there are plenty of leagues etc

PS
I know theres a PES forum but thought it might be more relevant in here

Well-known Member

I'd wait for PES 5 now if you can, it's only 2 months away. PES 4 should have been the best game on live but I never play it now other than the games for a league I'm in.

The problems are that there is lag. Now I know that lag can affect any game online but the problem with PES is that it's only the away team that is affected and even when conditions are good, you still get a degraded experience while the home team gets silky smooth play.

If you host a game, you won't get any lag ever but you'll wait a fair while for people to join your game. If you want a quick game, then you can join someone elses game and suffer the lag.

Even under good conditions gameplay is affected as you're defenders will be slower to react to through balls etc. Sometimes there is a delay on button presses too, so you can have a relatively smooth game but the players don't pass and shoot like they should because of the delay.

This problem of it only affecting the away team also allows for plenty of cheating when playing strangers. It's not uncommon for someone to flood their internet connection if they go a goal down, making it impossible for the away team to play at all due to the resulting lag.

Every single other sports game that I have played on live treats both players the same. When there is any lag affecting the game, it's an identical experience for both players.

Konami even made a patch that was supposed to fix this problem but it didn't!

The other problem is the abysmal ranking system. You get points even if you lose, so the rankigns only represent the people that can play the most games and not the best players. If you lose 1-0 you get 9 points, 2-0=8 points etc. Both players get 20 points for a draw and the winner will get 30 points for 1-0, 31 points for 2-0 etc.

In theory someone could play 1000's of games, lose every single one and still be top of the scoreboard.

That's it for the online side but there are other reasons I don't play this game and I remember that I was always a PES fan boy.

Throw ins are rubbish and options are severely limited allowing the opposition to regularly steal the ball.

Passing is occasionally way out. It's not uncommon for a pass made with the stick pointing in one direction to head the other way.

Referreeing is appaling with the whistle blowing for fouls with great regularity. Mainly due to the fact that players fall down as soon as someone goes near them with only a pressing tackle.

Offsides regularly spoil the flow of the game, the players never seem to make much of an effort to stay onside and the ref never makes a mistake, even on a 1 pixel offside decision.

If you absolutely have to play online football now, then get UEFA Champions league. I hardly ever see any lag and if it is it's very minimal and hasn't yet spoiled a game. It's by far the best game in the FIFA family and is a massive improvement over FIFA 05. The online implementation is also spot on, with a proper ranking system and loads of stats that are viewable for each player. It stores the last 10 results for everyone, so that you can see who they played, what the score was and what the rankings were.

It also has player stats for games played, goals scored, goals conceded, winning streaks, longest streaks, yellow cards, red cards, corners, fouls and many more.

There is also a nice trophy cabinet where you get rewards for playing games without disconnects, beating better ranked players, having no shots against, scoring 3 or more goals in a game and more.

The only problem with UEFA is that many people don't realise what an improvement it is over FIFA 05 and there aren't too many people playing it which is a real shame.

Active Member

I'd wait for PES 5 now if you can, it's only 2 months away. PES 4 should have been the best game on live but I never play it now other than the games for a league I'm in.

The problems are that there is lag. Now I know that lag can affect any game online but the problem with PES is that it's only the away team that is affected and even when conditions are good, you still get a degraded experience while the home team gets silky smooth play.

If you host a game, you won't get any lag ever but you'll wait a fair while for people to join your game. If you want a quick game, then you can join someone elses game and suffer the lag.

Even under good conditions gameplay is affected as you're defenders will be slower to react to through balls etc. Sometimes there is a delay on button presses too, so you can have a relatively smooth game but the players don't pass and shoot like they should because of the delay.

This problem of it only affecting the away team also allows for plenty of cheating when playing strangers. It's not uncommon for someone to flood their internet connection if they go a goal down, making it impossible for the away team to play at all due to the resulting lag.

Every single other sports game that I have played on live treats both players the same. When there is any lag affecting the game, it's an identical experience for both players.

Konami even made a patch that was supposed to fix this problem but it didn't!

The other problem is the abysmal ranking system. You get points even if you lose, so the rankigns only represent the people that can play the most games and not the best players. If you lose 1-0 you get 9 points, 2-0=8 points etc. Both players get 20 points for a draw and the winner will get 30 points for 1-0, 31 points for 2-0 etc.

In theory someone could play 1000's of games, lose every single one and still be top of the scoreboard.

That's it for the online side but there are other reasons I don't play this game and I remember that I was always a PES fan boy.

Throw ins are rubbish and options are severely limited allowing the opposition to regularly steal the ball.

Passing is occasionally way out. It's not uncommon for a pass made with the stick pointing in one direction to head the other way.

Referreeing is appaling with the whistle blowing for fouls with great regularity. Mainly due to the fact that players fall down as soon as someone goes near them with only a pressing tackle.

Offsides regularly spoil the flow of the game, the players never seem to make much of an effort to stay onside and the ref never makes a mistake, even on a 1 pixel offside decision.

If you absolutely have to play online football now, then get UEFA Champions league. I hardly ever see any lag and if it is it's very minimal and hasn't yet spoiled a game. It's by far the best game in the FIFA family and is a massive improvement over FIFA 05. The online implementation is also spot on, with a proper ranking system and loads of stats that are viewable for each player. It stores the last 10 results for everyone, so that you can see who they played, what the score was and what the rankings were.

It also has player stats for games played, goals scored, goals conceded, winning streaks, longest streaks, yellow cards, red cards, corners, fouls and many more.

There is also a nice trophy cabinet where you get rewards for playing games without disconnects, beating better ranked players, having no shots against, scoring 3 or more goals in a game and more.

The only problem with UEFA is that many people don't realise what an improvement it is over FIFA 05 and there aren't too many people playing it which is a real shame.

And remember what I am saying, all this is from a former PES fanboy!

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hmm ok Mark...can you go into a bit more detail, I'm not sure what your saying

Seriously, cheers for that - think I'll wait for the next release and see what it's like. I fancy the idea of online footy but not if it's going to annoy the tits off you because of lag.
When you say not many play UEFA Champions on Live - is it hard to find an opponent?

Well-known Member

PES should have been great. It sucked majorly. There was a lot of lag, and the patch didn't really help. Like Mark said, if you host the game, there is no lag, but the opponent will have some. It's just not fun. I went to the top 10 rankings after the patch, but only because people kept quitting because of lag (though I did win a couple of away games too). I know myself that I'm not a top 10 player!

Due to location, I can pay via PayPal or Bank Transfer (But require BIC/IBAN details)

Well-known Member

When you say not many play UEFA Champions on Live - is it hard to find an opponent?

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Compared to other games you can wait a while, sometimes a few minutes. There are still a few hundred people that play regularly and this can be seen because they keep resetting the rankings and so only people playing are then ranked.

I've never had an issue with the time taken to get an opponent in quick match, I used to wait similar times in Top Spin and Links. But it's certainly quicker to get a game of PES if you don't mind joining someone elses game.

I would suggest that UEFA is definately worth a rental to try. But other than that just hang on for the new games. If PES doesn't do it this year, then FIFA 06 is looking vastly improved anyway.